Baba, Lighting the Lamp of Love
Dr. Michael Goldstein, Central Coordinator of the SSSB Council of the U.S.A., visited New Jersey and New York this October and gave wonderful talks on Swami. He enumerated a number of qualities of Baba that he has derived from his experiences with the living Divinity. Dr. Goldstein’s inspiring and thought-provoking words are presented here.
Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, our Beloved Swami, has come to light the lamp of love in the heart of humanity. The qualities of the light are purity and selflessness. The powers of the light are redemption and transformation.
For me, Swami and the light are one. The light of His love is the essence of spirituality. The universality of His message is the basis of all religions. The Lord is accessible in all of His names and forms through all religions to all people who would love Him and follow Him.
The light from the lamp of selfless love shines in all hearts. All Sai devotees know this because we can remember how we were before we knew Swami’s love. We remember the darkness before dawn. All spiritual seekers and sincerely religious people who are not Sai devotees can also appreciate this by thinking about how they were before being inspired to follow the spiritual path or their religion. They also remember the darkness before dawn. The idly curious, cynical, skeptical, and seemingly faithless people among us can recall the rare moments in their lives when they were deeply moved by unselfish and inspired feelings. These feelings are the twinkling of the light from the lamp of love. For these people also, the dawn will soon come.
Darkness is ignorance of God and separation from Him. Light is knowledge of God and realization of our innate Divinity. We travel from the darkness of our ignorance, where the world is chaotic, and we arrive at our destination, a peaceful and beautiful world of spiritual illumination and selfless love. We progress on this path only by following the light from the lamp of love. We are transformed when we follow the light.
Spirituality is recognizing and following this path from the darkness to the light. The world’s religions are like maps written in different languages that demonstrate the course of the path. As we travel along the path of light, we meet and relate to other travelers. The Lord has given us identities and relationships with people so that we can learn to love. First, we learn to love with the sense of attachment, of Me and Mine, My son, My wife, My mother, My father. Then, as we progress spiritually, we begin to experience the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. We expand and extend unselfish love to all people.
Loving God has a dramatic effect on our lives. Loving God is like diving into the sea of selflessness. When we plunge into this water of selflessness, we initiate ever expanding, all-embracing ripples, concentric circles of Godliness that eventually will include all of creation. When we plunge into this water of selflessness, we become deeply immersed in a process of purification that changes us forever and uplifts all who know us. Such is the nature of selfless love. It transforms.
Creation is like God’s thought and life is like God’s dream. Our chosen form of the Lord is the thinker who planned the universe and the dreamer who conceived life. God contains all of His creation and is immanent in everything. But- God is greater than the creation that has emanated from Him. In the same manner, Divine love contains and includes the feelings of love that we are able to entertain as human beings. Just as God is greater than His creation, Divine love transcends and is greater than our familiar human expressions and experiences of love.
The light from the lamp of Divine love is ‘pure and selfless. But it is also tender and sweet, affectionate and playful, protective and reassuring. Swami has said that it is like the love of a thousand mothers.
The Power of the Light from the Lamp of Love is Infinite
There is nothing, nobody, that can detract from the brilliance of the light. Several years ago, I spoke at a public meeting sponsored by the Latin American Sai Organization. We met at a university auditorium, and there were several thousand people in the audience. After the talk, I answered questions about Swami from the audience.
Suddenly, a man in the balcony asked me what I felt was a very hostile question about Swami. “How do you know he is not the anti-Christ?” he asked. I was stunned. I closed my eyes and prayed to Swami for an answer. It came to me that I should answer by describing the qualities of Swami that I had experienced. I responded to the question in the following manner:
‘Who among men knows what we have thought, felt, experienced, and even dreamed?
‘Who among men can transcend the physical laws of the universe as we know them?
‘Who among men can uplift the spirits of the ignorant, the suffering, and the spiritual seekers with a touch, a glance, a smile, a word, and only God knows in how many other imperceptible ways?
‘Who among men has given his life to mankind as magnanimously and selflessly, always giving and forgiving and never getting and forgetting?
‘Who among men can speak the eternal truth spontaneously with ultimate authority?
‘Who among men can melt the most cynical and hardest of hearts into the sweet innocent love of a child?
It is my experience that Swami fulfills all of these qualities. What would you call such a man? For me, He is God.
That was my heartfelt and truthful answer to the question. Swami has come to light the lamp of love in our hearts. The qualities of the light are purity and selflessness. The powers of the light are redemption and transformation. Swami and the light are one. Have no doubt. Swami and the light are One!
~Om Sai Ram
